Page 12 of Pretty Evil
“Of course.”
“What about women? Do they figure in your life at all?”
I shrug. “They do, but not on my security team. Women work for me in my business. Some are managers, some directors, but my security team are ex special forces and there aren’t that many women I can call on to fill the roles.”
“So, you don’t only use women to satisfy your physical urges.”
“No.” I peer at her closely. “What about you, Serena? Do you have a high-powered job that hands men their balls for breakfast?”
I love how she throws her head back and laughs and I find myself staring. She is so beautiful. Self-assured, unafraid, and adventurous. A wild spirit much like me and I will be disappointed if she turns out to be just like the rest of the women I have entertained in my bed.
They are mainly just interested in money, their next surgery and snagging a billionaire. I kind of think this woman is better than that and I’m intrigued by her answer.
She sits astride one of the benches and gazes up at me with an allure I am struggling hard not to react to.
“I am expected to join my family business.”
“So, you are an heiress.”
I’m a little disappointed about that, and she grins.
“I can tell you have been researching your guest. Nice try.”
I sit astride the bench beside her and raise my eyes. “So, I am wrong.”
“No. You got that right, but unlike most pampered daughters, I am expected to pay dearly for my position.”
For a second her eyes cloud and I note the bitterness in them, and she shakes her head and says somewhat sadly, “I have money. More than I can spend. I have a family who love me, too hard as it happens. Then I have a future. A complicated uncertain future that is mine to determine up to a point.”
“So why the pain in your eyes, little one? Many would be happy with that.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t say I wasn’t a spoiled bitch.”
It makes me laugh. “I wouldn’t have said that.”
“I expect you thought it, though.” She shakes her head.
“I am as it happens, but right at this moment, I’m a little lost both physically and mentally. I am struggling to find the woman in me and decide what it is she lost somewhere along the way.”
“Is that why you’re visiting your mom?” I enquire, and she nods, a wistful expression in her eyes.
“Well remembered. Yes, mom left years ago because my father, well, I won’t sugar coat this, but he was a bastard and cheated on her.”
She stares at me with a hurt expression, causing me to reach for her hand, which surprises me more than anything.
Why do I even care?
“I don’t need your sympathy, Alexei, I just need your wild spirit. It was the reason I agreed to your request. For the first time in my life, I was free to make my own decision. There was nobody standing by my side preventing me and it felt liberating.”
She stares at me with an intense look of longing that I know isn’t for me but what I can give her, and it moves me. Not a lot does, but right in this moment she’s vulnerable, which makes her a lot more appealing to me.
“I can do liberation, tiger.” I grin and she laughs softly. “I’m counting on it.”
I tug her sharply toward me, so she falls from the bench onto my lap, and I grasp her glorious hair, loving how soft it feels in my iron fist.
I stare into her incredible eyes that are flashing with excitement and whisper against her lips, “I want to be everything you have been searching for Serena, for twenty-three hours of your life. I want to teach, to corrupt and to delight. I want to ruin, and I want to destroy. I will reach in and drag the woman out of you, and we will leave as strangers.”
“What about you, Alexei?”